Be Excellent To Each Other

You've nominated the games you want to play, and Zaphod and I have added a few more. The nominations have been looked at, unsuitable and crap games weeded out just leaving us with the cream of the crop. Apologies if your game didn't make it but I decided to be strict this time.

Apologies for the C64 bias, but the overwhelming majority of nominations were for 64 games so we had to add in a few extra CPC and Speccy titles to balance things out. There are 22 games in total of which we will be playing 9.

As we have lots more games than usual, you get 4 votes each.

The vote closes on Thursday. YOU VOTE NOW!

Some of the games:

Kane - Shoot birds, ride a horse, shoot people, ride horse to stop train:



Burnin' Rubber - GX4000 exclusive racer. It's a pimped up WEC LeMans.



Bruce Lee



Yie Ar Kung Fu

Fort Apocalypse - Commodore C64



Ikari Warriors



Jumping Jack



Great Giana Sisters

One of the games i nominated was "Bounty Bob Strikes Back"

This was one of the first games i had for my atari , on cassette and when you started it up you had a few seconds to wait until the loading screen which then gave you something like this



and that timer *started* at 15:00 minutes

Can you even consider that now ? , starting loading a game and waiting 15 minutes to start playing , or to get a loading error and have to rewind and try again.

The game itself is a great platformer , you can read some of the history of the game and the company that made it here :

http://www.bigfivesoftware.com/

One thing that really impressed was the overall presentation , instead of just typing in your name at the end you got control of two little tractor things to 'push' pillars of letters over onto a conveyer belt


Which were then carried by little birdies up to the actual hi score table


And when you filled the table , the lowest score fell off the bottom , was compacted and then kicked away by the baddie of the game

The game was also packed with secret codes , items in the levels to interact with (canons / slides / suction tubes / teleporters) , it was also one of those games which seemed 'fair' , if you died - it was something you did that was wrong , and although some levels look scarey to begin with , the sense of accomplishment when you actually got through them was great.


Here's a video of what the game actually looked like in action - although its a little washed out on youtube

Jet Set Willy - CPC - Masterpiece of abstract art. No, seriously.
Guardian 2 - ZX Spectrum - Dunno
Buggy Boy - C64 - Had lots of fun with this one when it was new , but haven't played it in many years.
Uridium -C64 - Sublime
Burnin' Rubber - Amstrad GX4000/CPC Plus - good
Bruce Lee - C64 - excellent
Swoop - BBC - dunno
Kane - CPC - Played this on the C64 back in the day and liked it, not sure if it'll have aged well. Might be awful, actually.
Bounty Bob Strikes Back - C64 - Good
H.E.R.O - C64 - Can't remember.
Ikari Warriors - CPC - Excellent
Fort Apocalypse - C64 - Dunno
Armalyte - C64 - good
Zub - ZX Spectrum - Dunno
Great Giana Sisters - C64 - Should be excellent, but not sure.
Jumping Jack - ZX Spectrum - Good
Mayhem in Monsterland - C64 - Good
Wizball - C64 - Good
Yie Ar Kung Fu - CPC - Probably rubbish, but people seem to like it for some reason.
Thrust - C64 - excellent, also funny name which was ace when I was 12.
Mountain King - C64 - Sublime, and I bet no one will vote for it again. Grumble.
Slapfight - C64 - good.

Please vote for Mountain King. Look - it's ace. No, really.

I've already voted and it didnt make my list but its an excellent game and the spiders are bloody scary.
However it doesnt look like you've voted yet either ?

My take on the games :

Jet Set Willy - CPC - never played but i assume similar to the other versions
Guardian 2 - ZX Spectrum - never heard of it
Buggy Boy - C64 - really fun game with an interesting greed mechanic going for it
Uridium -C64 - Excellent fast paced shooter , however the later levels come down to a memory game in where the blocks are which you need to avoid.
Burnin' Rubber - Amstrad GX4000/CPC Plus - quite fun, but a bit dated now
Bruce Lee - C64 - Great game , although the low difficulty curve may prove to be a problem
Swoop - BBC - never heard of it
Kane - CPC - I remember this being one of those games where they try to show that things dont need to be down to one game type , you can mix and match and i *remember* enjoying it , but havent tried it since.
Bounty Bob Strikes Back - C64 - a classic - see above
H.E.R.O - C64 - great little game , if i could have i'd have nominated the 2600 version of this to show the depth of game you can get in 4k
Ikari Warriors - CPC - I loved the C64 version of this , i'm hoping the Amstrad version is just as good
Fort Apocalypse - C64 - Again an atari game at heart , i remember all the comments from my friends that they liked airwolf better but thats because they were just jealous - also probably one of the first games i remember finishing.
Armalyte - C64 - Again a game i remember enjoying back in the day , and the metallic graphics still look impressive - just not sure how the game has held up
Zub - ZX Spectrum - sounds really familiar but i cant remember it
Great Giana Sisters - C64 - An average Mario clone , has some fun bits but does get quite repetative
Jumping Jack - ZX Spectrum - Another really familiar name , but cant place the game
Mayhem in Monsterland - C64 - A game i never had for my C64 , i first played it last year and it really does show what you could push the system to
Wizball - C64 - a 64 classic , novel idea , a bit hard to control but has a a wonderful atmosphere / story to it all
Yie Ar Kung Fu - CPC - Not played the CPC version but the other 8-bit versions were a nice paced fighter
Thrust - C64 - an arcade puzzler with gravity and guns , again an original idea well implemented - the controls may put some people off
Mountain King - C64 - a nice little platformer , has dated a bit but still works well
Slapfight - C64 - I dont really remember the 64 version of this very much , but i loved the arcade one.

My take

Jet Set Willy - CPC - It's Jet Set Willy FFS! It will be a fantastic challenge game.
Guardian 2 - ZX Spectrum - Dunno
Buggy Boy - C64 - Great fun if very easy.
Uridium -C64 - Bit bland
Burnin' Rubber - Amstrad GX4000/CPC Plus - Proper arcade racer. Ideal for the challenge.
Bruce Lee - C64 - Great fun
Swoop - BBC - Looked average. Keeping the BBC fans happy with this one.
Kane - CPC - Initially thought this was a good idea but now think it will be rubbish.
Bounty Bob Strikes Back - C64 - Meh.
H.E.R.O - C64 - No idea.
Ikari Warriors - CPC - Rock hard but good fun.
Fort Apocalypse - C64 - Seemed good
Armalyte - C64 - No idea.
Zub - ZX Spectrum - Great fun. Good for scoring.
Great Giana Sisters - C64 - I think its OK but then I do hate Mario
Jumping Jack - ZX Spectrum - Looks like it might be frustrating.
Mayhem in Monsterland - C64 - No idea.
Wizball - C64 - Hated this back in the day.
Yie Ar Kung Fu - CPC - Decent arcade fighter with high scores.
Thrust - C64 - Never got it.
Mountain King - C64 - No idea.
Slapfight - C64 - Average shooter.

For those who don't remember Zub, here is the game reviewed by an annoying Brummie:



[edit] A really thick Brummie who clearly hasn't read the instructions before commencing his review.

I'm surprised no-one has played Guardian II. It made Stu's top 100 and is the best defender clone I've played.

I played it as part of the reviewing process. Its OK, but I'm not sure its a standout title in the way, say, Deathchase is.

But that's just my opinion. I wouldn't want to VOTE BURNIN' RUBBER influence you.

Wec le Mans on the speccy > Burnin' Rubber

No no no. For a start the CPC version of WEC Le Mans is far better than the Speccy version. Although the CPC version looks like a Speccy port, it isn't.

What people might not realise about Burnin' Rubber is that you actually get to race through the night. The GX4000's 4096 colour palette is used to great effect.

Last day of voting for this. Polls close 11pm tonight!

Last hour chums.

Lots of threes, Chinster. Are you going to pick if there's a draw?

I think he should - otherwise we'll end up with Buggy Warriors or Yie Ar Willie , or pehaps some other strange coalition of games which just wont be as satisfying

We could ask the Queen?

It's the 2's that appear to be a problem. Last time we had a run off but since I'm intending we start immediately this time around, if everyone is OK I'll pick and then order the games. If poss I would like to swap formats each week depending on the spread of votes.

Results:

Outright winners:

Ikari Warriors - CPC
Jet Set Willy - CPC
Buggy Boy - C64
Uridium -C64
Jumping Jack - ZX Spectrum
Yie Ar Kung Fu - CPC

And 3 games plucked from the 2 pointers:

Burnin' Rubber - Amstrad GX4000/CPC Plus
Bounty Bob Strikes Back - C64
Guardian 2 - ZX Spectrum



I've picked Burnin' Rubber as its a great endurance game. Your score depends on how far you can race which is abit different from most of the games.

Bounty Bob as Zaphod likes it.

Guardian 2 as although on my quick play I didn't think it seemed that good, seems to like it and he's usually right on games.

Standby for launch......

[edit] I'm genuinly shocked GG Sisters and Zub didn't get through. Given the long discussions on Zub we had on World of (Linda - Ed) I'm surprised it didn't rate. Ah well.